A Stolen Moment
I know some of you, dear readers, have wondered where I went (I have been wondering this very same thing) and what I am doing. Basically, I have been innundated by a tremendous amount of teaching commitments as well as trying to deal with some needless political gamesmanship at the little college on the hill. These issues have exhausted and depressed me and also made me wonder many things that I probably should not be thinking about at this time.
However, in the midst of the madness and unpleasantness that are my life right now, I have focused on one lovely glimmering science story where birds are our teachers, one wonderful story that I can hardly wait to share with you, dear readers. I am working on it especially for you during those moments that I have stolen away from my other obligations. I am not allowed to tell you more about this story yet because it is still under embargo by Nature magazine, but I will publish it here Thursday afternoon, complete with breathtaking photos -- and this story, dear readers, is definitely worth the wait!
© 2004, 2005, 2006 by GrrlScientist
posted by GrrlScientist at
14:55
8 Peer Reviews:
cool! can't wait to read it!
Dawn
Great, I'll be waiting...
I, too, am looking forward to Thursdays blog. The upright hominids on this planet don't seem to show you the respect you deserve, but know that the feathered ones are surely grateful for the work you do in educating people on their behalf.
Miranda
Don't you just love those collegiate politics? Not!
I am most fortunate that my college has fairly tame politics (at least compared to where I went to graduate school or where I taught part time before finding this position).
I'm sorry you're having trouble. Who do you want harassed and belittled?
Dawn; I am so glad that you are waiting for this story; it's the least I can do for you after all the lovely bird photos and bird news stories you've shared with my other readers in Birds in the News!
Alon and Miranda; you both will love this story, if I manage to tell it well. I am still working on it, a few minutes here, 20 minutes there, making the prose more precise and clearer with each rewrite. I also have interviews that hopefully will be incorporated into the story before I post it on Thursday (my crazy schedule makes this difficult, but hopefully not impossible).
Incidentally, I am going to work on this story much more after I've finished it. I am going to transform it into a literary-science-y story so I can enter it into the Science Creative Quarterly's evolution writing contest at the end of November. So your feedback and comments on Thursday's story would be greatly appreciated. Sometimes, the public can't appreciate the beauty and the wonder of scientific ideas without a little literary help in that direction.
Astroprof; considering that I am a mere Adjunct who is earning only subsistence wages and who has no guarantee of a job from one semester to the next, I think these politics are not only unfair but incredibly cruel. This makes me wonder if things were actually better at Sweatshop U, where all of the faculty, save one individual, never even noticed my existence, even when I asked them questions. I initially thought it was an improvement that the faculty here speak to me, but I am rethinking that assessment because they are so astonishingly negative and hypercritical and, at times, verbally abusive, that I don't think this is an improvement at all.
on the other hand, I am also thinking that my temperament is poorly suited to teaching, despite the fact that I try, try, try so hard.
Phila; I love you! How did you get to be so wonderfully funny and insightful? (and your Friday nudi pictures are a special delight to me). I hope you have a good day today (well, and every day) because you deserve it for making my days a little brighter. Moochas smoochas.
GrrlScientist
Now I'm all worried about you.
Also I'm curious to know how your newish African Grey is getting along.
ACW; I'll ask Zazu if he will let me tell more tales about him here. He is a parrot without any secrets, I suspect, so he'll probably be alright with this.
GrrlScientist
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